The room is plastered with paisley wallpaper, family photos, and certificates. I know you just want me to feel comfortable, as if I’m just talking to another human being (a really intelligent human being) instead of the over analytical doctor I know you are. But honestly, can’t you have a bit more taste than paisley? The dark maroon and gold running across the walls makes the room seem smaller. If I were insane, I’d be very uncomfortable right now, walking into your office and sitting in your old, plush armchair. But I am sane-for the most part-and the only issue I have that I will never tell you is how grossed out I am thinking about how many different people have snotted and cried on this very seat cushion.

You smile at me.

Psych: Good evening. What would you like to talk about today?

Me: ….my feelings. 

Psych: Really?

You grin and I admit, I have to keep down a smile.

Me: I know, normally you have to probe people into it or something but…it’s something to talk about, right?

Psych: Well then, go right ahead. 

Me: Alright.  My feelings aren’t normal.

Psych: Not normal? What do you mean? 

Me: They just…aren’t. One moment I’ll be exploding with emotion, so much that I have to fight it back. And than most of the time I’m just…placid. Unnaturally stale.

Psych: That’s interesting. Why would you say placid or stale? Why not just calm? 

Me:  Because it’s not calm. It’s more like a solid. Impenetrable.  It’s like…a marble ball rolling on water. Have you ever seen one of those? The marble rolls with the running water, but it can’t go anywhere. It’s too heavy.  That’s what I feel most of the time. As if I’m the marble, letting everything roll off of me without getting in.

You nod and stare at me for a while, to see if I have anything else to say. Or maybe you’re just thinking. 

…Is it weird that I don’t feel that way now that I’ve told you about it?

Psych: No, not at all. What do you feel now? 

Me: I feel…like an autumn breeze. But it won’t last.

You smile at me and nod again.

Psych:  Even so, it’s good. 

I lean back in the chair and sigh.

Me: Good.

Occasionally, when it gets bad, i’ll look back and wonder when it started. Was I born this way or was I made this way? Is there any real way to fix it? Can I live with it? And then I realize how much I treat it like a disease when it’s just a habit. A habit that, like cigarettes, can slowly take your life away.

I doubt myself.

 Perhaps it was early on, when I was small. I remember my father always asking what I wanted at the restaurant and then I would whisper it in his ear like a secret so that he could tell the waitress. He let me do that until I was eleven, when I finally had to start ordering on my own. But I still hate subway. I hate telling someone what I want when the truth is, I hardly know it myself.

Or maybe it was in elementary school, when every person I trusted turned their back on me and all I was left with was a need for attention. Middle school maybe? When others told me to keep quiet because everything I said seemed wrong. That carried on to high school and I once didn’t speak for a week in fear of reprimand, and now I still doubt what I say even when I shouldn’t. I’ll have the right answer, but all that comes out is a murmur. What happened?

But I know the main reason, above it all, is her. She’s the reason for every word of doubt ringing in my head and I know it, but I also believe that those words are truth.

Brat. Lazy. You’ll get no where. Who could be friends with you? How could someone love you? Chubby. Plain. Unattractive. Stupid. You’re so cruel to everyone. Ungrateful. You don’t deserve friends. You don’t deserve anyone to love you. 

I think that when somethings are told to you for so long-beaten into you-that eventually you start to see and believe them. I remember a time when I used to tell her that none of those things were true, but after a while, all I could do was insult her in return. It was all I could do. Because every time I looked in the mirror, all I saw-all I see are the imperfections she listed out for me. Even after i’m rid of her, she’s still a little devil on my shoulder, telling me how much i’m bringing everyone else down. How much i’m annoying them. How horrible I look. She’s everywhere. It’s like she planted these seeds of thoughts in my head just for the purpose of knowing that I could never forget about her, as if she knew that I would look at myself and remember every cut and bruise and hateful word pressed on me.
She is the only person in this world that I hate.
So much for always loving your mother.